Colorado Outdoor Adventures Skiing & Snowboarding Telluride The Rockies The Southwest Tours Travel: Colorado Outdoor Adventures Skiing & Snowboarding Telluride The Rockies The Southwest Tours Travel
by maribeth
Comments Off on Adventure Travel Love for You and KOTO
Adventure Travel Love for You and KOTO
Hiking Mt. Wilson, a 14er: Adventure Travel at Its Best in Colorado
I think it’s so cool that we have some of the best adventure specialists based right here in Telluride, Colorado. It makes sense, since Telluride and the outlying region provide the perfect terrain for heading out and exploring the great outdoors whether you’re cycling, hiking, skiing, fishing, climbing or jeeping. Some of these guiding greats have done so well in the region that they also conduct tours beyond southwestern Colorado, as far away as the other side of the globe, in fact.
A few of these companies have generously offered tours to KOTO’s current fundraising campaign. I’ll be chatting more about these adventure specialists on tomorrow night’s Travel Fun, a special live edition of my talk show on travel, which airs Thursday, September 17, A LITTLE EARLIER THAN USUAL at 6:20 pm mountain time.
I have been doing this show for almost eleven years and you can find many of my interviews posted on my blog as podcasts. If you have enjoyed Travel Fun, I encourage you to contact me to make a pledge or a donation. You can also show your love by snatching up one of the below tours at a deeply-discounted price. Thanks to Lizard Head Cycling Guides, Telluride Mountain Guides, Telluride Adventures/San Juan Outdoor Adventures and Telluride Offroad, here’s what I have to offer:
Boulder Colorado Hotels & Lodging The Rockies: Boulder Colorado Hotel The Rockies
by maribeth
Comments Off on Hotel Boulderado: Boulder’s Bastion of Tradition
Hotel Boulderado: Boulder’s Bastion of Tradition
Hotel Boulderado: A Sight to See
“Why aren’t I staying here?” exclaimed Alec Baldwin upon a recent visit to Boulder’s renowned place of lodging, the Hotel Boulderado.
Mr. Baldwin was staying at another fine property in town but like any informed visitor to this tony Colorado city, he popped into Boulder’s landmark hotel for a look around. Certainly a lot of people feel this way as they gawk–neck-cranked and wide-eyed–up at the stunning leaded glass canopied ceiling of the Boulderado’s lobby. The beauty of this masterpiece crafted out of cathedral glass from Italy bedazzles one and all.
As you look around the lobby you discover other treasures from the hotel’s more than a century-old past. Glass showcases display historical artifacts from the hotel and Boulder while other features of the lobby provide a living history experience extraordinaire; the Boulderado’s original safe, for example, is on display behind the front desk and the more than one-hundred year-old, operator-attended Otis elevator still works like a charm. Guests and passersby are encouraged to poke around to take in this marvelous slice of Colorado history.
Aspen Colorado Crested Butte Cycling The Rockies Travel: Aspen bike races Colorado Colorado Crested Butte Cycling The Rockies Travel USA Pro Cycling Challenge
by maribeth
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The Thrill of a Bike Race
The Start of the USA Pro Challenge in Aspen
Sexy Cyclists
More Good-Looking Guys
I’m here at my desk amid piles and piles of papers, cards, brochures and miscellaneous other remnants from an action-packed trip to the USA Pro Challenge, which took place here in Colorado last week. I also just spent a couple of hours going through a slew of images from time spent at this exciting bike race. I met cyclists and bystanders, travel suppliers and promoters, journalists and commentators, fans of all ages, shapes and sizes, avid cycling enthusiasts, amateur bike riders and tons of folks just out for a good time.
There’s nothing like a big sporting event to bring people together, especially when it’s on wheels and it travels to different locations along the way. Many people followed the seven days of racing–an extraordinary route that began in Aspen and finished in Denver as it traversed some of the world’s highest mountain passes, most scenic valleys and most beloved Colorado destinations. I hit the USA Pro Challenge in Aspen, Crested Butte and Gunnison and boy, did I soak up every minute of fun I could find within that four-day period.
Aspen Colorado Durango Music & Dance Telluride Telluride Festivals The Rockies: Aspen Colorado Durango Music & Dance Telluride Telluride Festivals The Rockies
by maribeth
Comments Off on Steve Gumble Brings Us Telluride Blues & Brews and More
Steve Gumble Brings Us Telluride Blues & Brews and More
Steve Gumble
There was a story in The New York Times a few days ago about the proliferation of music festivals all over the world within this past decade. In North America, you can count almost 850 for this year alone. People are crazy about music festivals and the all-encompassing experiences they offer, and promoters and musicians have found them to be profitable enterprises.
Telluride Blues & Brews Festival
But no one puts on a festival like Telluride, Colorado. Sure, I’m biased because I live here. But ask anyone and they’ll likely tell you the same. Plus, most of our great Telluride festivals—from music to film—have been around for decades. So I was thrilled to do a Travel Fun interview with Steve Gumble, founder of Telluride Blues & Brews, one of our beloved festivals, to hear his story, how he got this now twenty-one-year-old festival going and to listen to him reminisce about some of the most memorable moments from his shows.
Click the play button below to listen to Steve chat about this world-renowned festival as well as the Durango Blues Train and Snowmass Mammoth Fest, two other terrific musical happenings he recently took on.
Podcast (bonjour): Play in new window | Download
Colorado Hotels & Lodging Mountain Living The Rockies: Colorado Hotels & Lodging Mountain Living Ridgway The Rockies
by maribeth
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Garden Love
Nina’s Garden
I’ve been feeling much love these past days. It’s a different sort of love. It’s a love shared around a theme: gardening. This is rather new to me, since I’ve never been much of a gardener. I love visiting beautiful gardens and receiving a bouquet of flowers counts as one of my greatest joys in life, but getting down and dirty with the soil has never been my forté. Now, however, I’m much more enthusiastic, perhaps it’s because this year I decided to add vegetables and herbs to my potted plants. This year I yearn to see the fruits of my efforts and I’m crossing my fingers for an abundant harvest of tomatoes, peppers, basil, melon, pumpkins and more. As I sit at my desk, I’m sending love to all my little plants with the hope that they will defy the challenges of living at over 9,500 feet and that somehow they will miraculously thrive.
Colorado Hotels & Lodging Restaurants Telluride The Rockies: Colorado Hotels & Lodging Restaurants Telluride The Rockies Weddings
by maribeth
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Colorado: A Stunning Place for Weddings
A Telluride Wedding by Merrick Chase
Graduations, anniversaries, engagements, weddings. ‘Tis the season for gatherings—big and small—to mark momentous occasions. I’ve noticed an influx of people from all over the country to Telluride to celebrate milestones, especially weddings, now that the weather has turned beautiful. Telluride, in fact, has become quite the place for destination weddings year-round with perhaps the exception of mid-spring since the leaves don’t typically pop until late May. I frequently meet people in and around Telluride and Telluride Mountain Village—often on the gondola which joins these two towns—that are here for a wedding. Many of the couples that opt to have weddings here and in other parts of Colorado have no particular attachment to the area except for their love of its beauty, the perfect backdrop for making a special day even more awe-inspiring.
Colorado Durango Four Corners Mountain Living Outdoor Adventures Podcasts The Rockies: Colorado Durango Four Corners Mountain Living Outdoor Adventures Podcasts The Rockies
by maribeth
Comments Off on Embracing Colorado Wilderness with Over the Hill Outfitters
Embracing Colorado Wilderness with Over the Hill Outfitters
The Great Colorado Outdoors: Where Life is Best Experienced from a Horse
Spring has finally sprung—full-on—here in Colorado and despite the fact that it snowed about ten days ago, this week the thermometer has been registering summertime temps. Roadways over the highest mountain passes are being plowed for passage and outfitters of all sorts are preparing for the influx of summer visitors. There’s still some snow to be cleared from the steep mountain trails, however, with the warmth of our southwestern Colorado sun, all our glorious wilderness will soon be open to locals and vacationers alike.
My fellow ski instructor buddies have taken up their summer posts as guides, landscapers or in my case, as a full-time writer, to name a few. Mother nature and all of us fortunate enough to live in this beautiful country are transitioning nicely into summer. At the end of ski season, I sat down with Dennis Huis, a top ski instructor at Telluride Ski & Snowboard School, to hear about his flip side, the job he’s been doing every summer for about as long as he’s been in ski school world.
Dennis talks about his work as a guide on pack trips with Over the Hill Outfitters in Durango, Colorado in my Travel Fun interview below. Click on the play button to listen to what he has to say about life on the trail. People from all over the world learn about the true definition of “getting away from it all” on these five-day horse trips into the Weminuche Wilderness, the largest wilderness area in Colorado which encompasses a significant part of the rugged San Juan Mountains, some of the most spectacular peaks in the United States.
Podcast (bonjourcolorado): Play in new window | Download
Colorado Hotels & Lodging Spas The Rockies: Colorado Hot Springs Hotels & Lodging Pagosa Springs Spas The Rockies
by maribeth
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Pagosa Paradise: A World-Class Hot Springs Destination
Pagosa Springs By Night
At the end of big Western travels that sliced through five Rocky Mountain states in the fall of 2001, I landed in Pagosa Springs, Colorado. And breathed a big sigh of contentment. It was the last stop on a three-week reconnaissance adventure with the goal of finding where to settle in the West. The tour extended from Montana to Wyoming to Utah to Arizona and then up to Colorado. On the heels of 9/11 and in the aftermath of an accumulation of personal upsets, the West beckoned this East Coast gal, yet I had little idea of where to go. I yearned for more sunshine, the great outdoors, the mentality and the lifestyle of the West, and there’s no doubt I was in need of healing. More than I even realized. And I think that’s largely why Pagosa Springs, Colorado resonated so strongly with me.
Less than three months later on January 1, 2002, I lumbered over Wolf Creek Pass at the Continental Divide with my partner at that time in a huge rental truck, nervous and excited about starting a new life in the West. In all, I lived a year and a half in Pagosa before moving to Telluride, Colorado where I’ve been for almost eleven years. Pagosa served as a wonderful introduction to my new life out West: its sunshine, spectacular scenery and low-key, hometown feel nurtured me immensely and there’s no doubt that Pagosa’s hot springs played a big role in helping me to gain a better sense of wellbeing. Each trip to the hot springs always made me feel renewed and refreshed, cleansed from the garbage that often bogs one down on the road called life.
